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I watched an exceptionally good horror film on Netflix, called The Babadook. One thing I like to do after seeing a good movie is try to reverse engineer the screenplay. What was the spark that inspired the screenwriter?

In this case the spark was likely a familiar domestic scenario in fiction: what tvtropes.org calls “Maternal Death, Blame the Child” — i.e., the mother dies in childbirth, and the father resents the child.

In this breakout Australian film, the genders are reversed. It’s the father who dies in a horrific auto accident while rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital. Fast-forward seven years, and you have single mother Amelia, struggling to raise her stormy, high-strung son, Sam. The lines on Amelia’s face hint at the toll Sam has taken on her with his eccentric hyperactivity. At just seven years old, Sam has developed a spastic repertoire of magician’s tricks, while fashioning homespun mechanical weapons that shatter windows and break dishes.

The film makes clear Sam’s motive in demanding all of his mother’s attention. He’s afraid she doesn’t love him. It’s his greatest fear. And in a horror film, your greatest fear can turn murderous.

Amelia begins to fear this about herself, as well. Has she stopped loving her son? Though her affection for Sam is obvious, her sanity is wearing thin. She puts out Sam’s fires left and right: Sam ejected from school for bad behavior, Sam shoving his cousin out of her tree fort and breaking her nose.

Amelia is also horribly sleep deprived. With Sam’s birthday–also the anniversary of her husband’s death–fast approaching, she’s plagued by nightmares of the car crash that decapitated her husband seven years before.

Sam has nightmares, too. Amelia must soothe him long into the night. The best way is to let him sleep in her bed. But she’s robbed of her own sleep, as he clings to her. In two memorable close-ups, Sam’s hand grips her throat or he grinds his teeth right next to her ear.

As the sleep deprivation wears on her, Amelia begins to lose her temper. She snaps at Sam, curses, even. “If you’re so hungry, why don’t you eat shit!” She apologizes, horrified at herself.

But we’re not surprised. We see she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Tellingly, that’s when the Babadook–a supernatural creature from a super-creepy children’s book–begins to terrorize them in their shadowy house.

Amelia reading the pop-up book “The Babadook” to her son, Sam

(Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the film yet, stop reading here.)

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From that point on, the film plays as a supernatural slasher flick. The Babadook possesses Amelia’s body and targets Sam. It/she stalks him with a butcher knife.

Or, is it the case that Amelia has simply lost her mind? If so, the story shifts from supernatural thriller to psychological thriller and becomes much more disturbing.

But the camera storytelling keeps us on the fence. It’s a classic presentation of Freud’s the uncanny: we don’t know how to take Amelia’s violence–is she possessed or is she insane?

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Rather than run away, Sam fights back. With his arsenal of homemade weapons, he pelts Amelia/Babadook with darts and bocce balls.

He slows her attack long enough to wrest her attention: “I know you don’t love me,” he shouts. “The Babadook won’t let you!”

It’s at that moment the film so movingly reveals the central metaphor: that Amelia’s grief at the loss of her husband poisons her relationship to her child. The Babadook represents her resentment. Resentment kills relationships.

At the risk of revealing too much, let’s just say Sam battles the Babadook to the end.

Wow, do I have my hair blown back. And I don’t mean just by the thrills and chills. I mean by the relationship drama, the villains/villainy, the comedy. Perhaps where the show excites me most is the inventiveness — a.k.a., rule-breaking — of its cinematography. That’s especially true of Season 5. Sure, the camera work has always been fresh and ingenious. But now, with all the night shooting and severe-yet-nuanced studio lighting, they’ve really turned the thumbscrews on pure retinal agitation. Plus, shooting on the infinitely more mobile 16mm camera produces some startlingly original looks. Like in Ep. 3, “Four Walls and a Roof,” in the church, when our heroes turn the tables on Gareth and Martin, and the hunters become the hunted. That shot from Gareth’s point of view, looking up at Rick wielding the “machete with the red handle.” Sure, that point of view isn’t new, angled up and making a giant of Rick. But the framing — the shot has the altar and stained glass in the background. You’re not supposed to elevate heroes to the level of God. (Not in America, anyways. It’s not an uncommon trope in Japanese screen culture, especially in anime. See Berserk.)

Though it’s impossible to argue what the show does best, consistency has to be part of that conversation. Not a single episode feels like a dud, not in any of the five seasons. Only the rarest cable drama reaches this astonishing level of reliability, episode to episode. The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and Deadwood keep it at a “10” from bell to bell. But other shows? I can’t think of any. Even some of my favorite shows of all time have their off, phone-it-in days. Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Wire. None of them can match such perfection.

In its mature state the series unsurprisingly has become heavily philosophical. Mostly themes of identity and ego. And, oh yeah, that third theme. Despite having way more characters who die than survive, the show has rarely been about death. Season 5 is about death. Tyrece, Beth, Bob, Martin. (Martin. Yep. Death.) That the nature of existence depends on death — or, rather, IS death — that’s one common thread among the episodes of Season 5.

It’s no coincidence Beth is only a great character when she confronts death. At the front of her plot arc (Season 2, Ep.10) she tries to kill herself; at the back of her plot arc (Season 5, Ep. 8) she dies bitterly. In both, her cynicism and clear sight ring true. Take for instance her first real scenes (Season 2, Ep. 10). Maggie tries to talk Beth out of suicide.

Maggie: “You could do that to Dad?”

Beth: “He’s clueless. He had us waitin’ for a cure.”

Maggie: “You could do that to me? I can’t take another funeral.”

Beth: “You can’t avoid it. What are we waiting for? We should both do it. At the same time–”

Maggie: “What!”

Beth: “–help each other. It’s hard to do–”

Maggie: “Stop talking like that.”

Beth: “–our choice. Then it would be over. Or we’ll be forced to do it when this house and the farm is overrun . . . I don’t want to be gutted.”

In Seasons 3 and 4, the middle span of her plot arc, Beth comes across as flat and contrived and superfluous. But her lustrous scenes in Season 5, Ep’s 6 – 8, anchoring the drama of the mid-season finale, she grows into herself. She survives in that Lost-like, dystopian hospital from hell. She stands up to the depraved corruption, the naked abuse. She helps shield victims of what is essentially a prison. She becomes larger than life, becomes a worthy member of our group of super heroes. In her swan song she says, sneering, seething at Dawn, “I get it now.” She stabs Dawn in the chest and gets shot in the face. Showrunner Scott Gimple could’ve gotten many more great miles out of her. But her death feels just forthright. It is certainly courageous on his part.

Throughout this season Rick feels the need to tell the town folk over and over, “It’s all about survival.” Well, that’s one side of the coin.